


The Claw of the Phoenix

by xyandz



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Mythology References, One Shot, Phoenix - Freeform, cameo by Austin Lake, kind of?, takes place between The Last Olympian and the Lost Hero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:38:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19197130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xyandz/pseuds/xyandz
Summary: Percy Jackson had never had a very restful life, anyone can tell you that. Not many half-bloods do. Half-blood, demigod, whatever you want to call them. Half god, half human. Whether it be Greek, Roman or Norse, any demigod can tell you that their very existence can cause a lot of problems.Annabeth herself had a hard life, from a very young age. And something that makes her life even harder? Fishing Percy out of trouble. It’s a hard job, and probably no one else would have the strength or the patience to keep on doing it day after day.That job gets radically harder when one day Percy (accidentally) picks a fight with something he really should not have.~~Or: The Time That Percy Picked a Fight With a Very Big Bird





	1. I Run From a Big Bird

“What in Hades did you do now!” Annabeth scowled at me, as she ran beside me. 

“It’s not my fault, Annabeth, I swear.” It wasn’t. I’m telling the truth, I had no idea what I’d done this time. I was waiting outside the Met to meet up with Annabeth. She’d wanted to go to the museum, so, despite my difficult history with the building, we decided to meet there. But I’d done something. Maybe it’s a son of Poseidon thing, but I couldn’t seem to walk down the street without attracting some sort of trouble. 

“Then whose fault is it, Percy?” She glared at me, and, believe me, you do not want to be on the other side of those icy grey eyes when she gets upset. 

“I-I-I don’t know what happened, I was just standing there, and then this giant peacock started chasing me.” Annabeth spared a glance behind her, but the bird had disappeared. She pulled both of us to a stop. 

“You ran from a peacock.” She raised an eyebrow, skeptical. I took a moment to catch my breath, keeping an eye behind us for the monstrous bird. 

“You don’t understand, it was huge. And purple. And huge.” I explained, which was probably not the best explanation, but if you saw the thing, you would be stuck on those two adjectives too. “Do you think Hera…?” I asked. It didn’t seem likely that the ever-annoying Her Majesty Supreme would send some mega-bird after us after the Titan war, but that lady could hold a grudge and I wouldn’t put it past her. Mortals passed around us, oblivious. No one really noticed the knife strapped to Annabeth’s belt, or if they did, they didn’t mention it. 

Annabeth looked slightly more worried at that description. I could tell that already ideas were spinning around her head about what we might be dealing with. Her nose always crinkled up in an adorable way whenever she started thinking hard. She’d dressed up a little bit for the day, too. Nothing too fancy, just a grey button up shirt and jeans. Still, it was surprising to see her without her camp shirt. She’d even added her favorite owl earrings from her dad, which was surprising, because Annabeth wasn’t usually the jewelry person, not beyond her camp necklace. She looked like a million golden drachmas. I feel horrible every time I ruin one of our dates, even though it isn’t usually my fault. I mean, the last time, the blame was totally on Hermes. Besides, I ended up taking her to Paris for our anniversary, which wasn’t such a bad ending. I was hoping this incident would end somewhere in that direction if only so Annabeth wouldn’t break up with me. 

“Did you attack it or did it attack you?” Annabeth asked. I sighed. 

“I wouldn’t have gone near that thing in a million years.” It was true. The bird was huge, at least the size of an average SUV. It looked like a peacock, except instead of greens and blues, the whole thing was an angry purple-ish color, like a giant walking bruise. It was comical until it started walking towards me. 

Now, being a demigod in New York City is about as dangerous as walking into a pack of rabid dogs when you’re covered in peanut butter. The whole city is just sprawling with monsters. Mostly, mortals don’t notice them, because of the Mist. It’s this sort of magic barrier between the mortal world and the magical. Some monsters and demigods along with most gods can manipulate the Mist, like this friend Thalia I had. She could make mortals believe that, say, you went to a school that you’d actually never been to before in your life, for example. The thing is, though, that the Mist doesn’t really work on demigods or monsters. Some mortals I knew, like my friend Rachel, and my mom, could see through the Mist too. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not a one hundred percent thing either way. Sometimes demigods could be fooled by the Mist too. But this bird? It would take an Aphrodite-size makeover to blend it into the background. 

Some monsters are easily disguised in the mortal world. Usually, humanoid ones, or ones that were smaller, could be covered in the Mist. I knew an empousa that could pull off a cheerleader, which isn’t easy when you consider that one of her legs was bronze and the other was a donkey's. The Mist once even made my pet hellhound look like a poodle. But the Mist can only go so far. It was hard to believe that the tourists getting pictures next to the columns couldn’t see the bird. But they didn’t give any indication that they saw the peafowl, so I didn’t make a scene. They probably thought it was just some broadway bus with the Aladdin sign on it or something. I’d decided just to keep an eye on it. And then it started charging me. 

If you’ve never seen a peacock charge you, then you are a lucky person. If you’ve never seen a giant purple peacock chase you, then you’re even luckier. 

I’d started running the other way as soon as it approached. Now normally, I’d be up for a good old fashioned monster fight. Not like it’s my favorite thing ever, but this wasn’t my first rodeo. But there’s something just terrifying about seeing a giant bird headed straight at you, determined to rip your guts out. Before I could process anything, my brain was screaming run! And my legs were saying, yup. 

That’s when I ran into Annabeth. Literally. I’d run into her, and, without looking back, grabbed her wrist and dragged her along with me. If I wasn’t in fear of my life, I wouldn’t have dared to yank Annabeth around anywhere. Pushing or shoving her is a good way to get judo flipped. One of the reasons I love her. At that moment, however, pretty much the only thing on my mind was Adhfjkgjnins! I grabbed her arm and kind of screamed out, “Run!” which got us a few stares from the mortals around, who couldn’t really see what was wrong. Maybe they thought we were reenacting Doctor Who and the Day of the Giant Purple Aliens Who Looked Like Peacocks.  
Which brings us to now. 

“Did you say it was purple?” She asked, a pensive look on her face. I nodded. She scowled. “Di immortales, Percy, that might have been a phoenix!” That brought me up short.

“Aren’t phoenixes, like, a foot tall? And gold, or something? I mean, in that movie about the magic school," but trailed off when she glared at me. Ever since then, when I’d imagined a phoenix (not that I did this very often) I’d sort of thought of a sort of golden swan, flying around and contentedly singing songs. Not Barney reimagined as a bird. “Plus, aren’t phoenixes good?” She gave me a look then. The look that promised another lesson in Greek mythology. I’m sure that if we weren’t afraid for our lives (again) she would have prepared a PowerPoint presentation on exactly why I was wrong.

“Phoenixes in Greek mythology were different from the whole golden-red image. That’s just a stereotype from the Egyptian period. Phoenixes in Greece were linked to this town, Phoenicia. It was a great trade city back then. They made purple dye from shells, and that had something to do with how the phoenixes looked. I mean, some sources say that they looked like peacocks, and some go with the whole gold thing, but in monster class at camp, we were taught more of the stories that had them as purple.” She looked frustrated, little lines crinkling on her forehead and between her eyes. “The trouble is, they’re immortal.” 

“The whole ashes thing?” I asked. “Like, they’re born, and then they catch on fire, and then they pop right out of the ash pile fully formed again?” She nodded.

“Yeah. I know there’s a way to kill them, but I just can’t remember…” She scowled and cursed again. As we were speaking, a cloud shifted over the sun. I glanced up and then did a double take. A giant mass of purple feathers covered all of the light over us. It shifted, and the sun was visible again. Then it shifted again, and it got dark. The phoenix was circling us. 

“Annabeth!” I warned, and we both took off. A glance at the sky told me that the big bird was pursuing us. “Where do we go?” I asked desperately. 

“I don’t know!” I could see how much she hated to say those words. “Until we know how to fight it, I don’t know what would put us at an advantage! Duck!” We both hit the ground and narrowly missed a swipe from the talons of the phoenix. It let out a caw in anger, and my nose started running. 

Sniffing I asked Annabeth, “Do you feel sick?” Coughing, she nodded. 

“Phoenixes can spread plagues, the bad ones anyway. The good ones usually bring wealth and prosperity around their nest.” I wiped my nose. 

“I could do with a little wealth and prosperity right now.” Then I frowned in confusion. “Wait, I’m not complaining, but I only have a runny nose. That’s not exactly plague material.”

“If I had to make an educated guess,” Annabeth said, dodging another claw, “I’d say that the big damage would start when it starts singing.” We made a turn onto East 76th and ducked into a cafe to be out of reach of the grasping claws. The phoenix disappeared from view. 

Glancing out the window I asked, “Did it give up?” No sooner were the words out of my mouth then I regretted them. Sounds like giant teeth grinding together reverberated through the cafe. Indents started appearing in the wall. Annabeth gave me the glare. The you-just-jinxed-us-and-you-know-it glare. We knew that the cafe wall wouldn’t stand for long. It wasn’t built to withstand the sort of force being applied to it. I wondered if they had phoenix attack covered in the insurance policy. 

Thinking quickly, Annabeth reached over and smashed open the glass cover to the fire alarm with the hilt of her dagger. Pulling it quickly, she yelled, “Fire, everybody out!” We were out first, distracting the Phoenix just in case it had a taste for mortals. Usually, monsters don’t, but we couldn’t take any chances with a monster this dangerous. The rest of the people funneled out behind us, running aimlessly and screaming. One twenty-year-old guy had a dog in one hand, a computer in the other, and was holding a coffee mug with the tips of his fingers. He looked like he regretted the decision of saving the beverage, especially when the hot liquid slopped over the edges. 

In front of Annabeth and I was a distinctly more angry version of the bird we had been running from. It looked frustrated, like usually it’s victims didn’t run. Maybe it usually preyed on the dead or ordered takeout. Looking back on it, it probably was my fault that the monster was chasing us. Or my scent, anyway. This monster was probably just minding its own business until it caught a strong whiff of demigod burger. Annabeth likes to tease that I smell, but with monsters it was different. These creatures were born to track us down for food, like mythical greyhounds. 

We squared off with the monster. At least this I was used to. Annabeth and I had been a team since we were kids, we knew what the other was thinking when it came to fighting. The phoenix stood there, staring us down. Purple flames fluttered in its eyes as it reared up its head and let out a battle caw. I leaned over and puked into the gutter. Annabeth looked pale and sweaty, and I’m sure that she had some sort of a fever. 

“Ready?” She asked me, looking a little dizzy. 

“Not at all.” I pulled out Riptide and uncapped it. “On three?” She nodded.

“On three.”


	2. We Roast A Building

Annabeth and I were a great team, and you’d think we’d be more than a match for a big purple bird. Unfortunately, neither of us were archers. The phoenix had this annoying mentality that it did not want to die, and, once it remembered it had wings and we didn’t, it started circling us from up above, occasionally swooping in and slashing at us with its claws. Neither side was having much luck. I’m sure that if Annabeth had had a bow and some arrows, that bird would have been chicken dinner. Annabeth had been training for monster fights since she was seven, which is a longer story than I really have time to explain. Plus, if I went around telling everyone her story, she’d have my guts. Since she’d been training so long, there wasn’t much that she couldn’t do, as far as it comes to weapons. I, on the other hand, am a terrible shot. You can’t even imagine how terrible I am. Let’s just say, you do not want to be within a fifteen-foot radius of me when I have a bow and arrows. My trainer, Chiron, can attest to that. 

But, unfortunately, neither I nor Annabeth had a bow of any kind. We were both more of hand to hand combat people, and, unless we were charging into battle, we didn’t carry more than our favorite weapons on us. Annabeth had a dagger and I had a sword that could turn into a ballpoint pen. None of those options would be very good at helping us with our aviary problem. Maybe Annabeth could have thrown her dagger, but she wouldn’t risk losing it, and that wasn’t something that she was willing to do. That dagger had a long backstory, and it was too important to just toss away. I tried throwing my sword, but the phoenix was surprisingly fast for its size, and just dodged it. We were feeling pretty beaten by the time my sword had returned to my pocket (long story). 

We eventually decided to contact some help. Retreating into the- now empty- cafe, Annabeth walked over to the sink and turned the tap on. She redirected the water with her hand so it would spray up in a mist and we tried to make a rainbow. Eventually, we succeeded, and I pulled a golden drachma out of my pocket. 

“Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show me Camp Half-Blood.” I said quickly, throwing the drachma through the rainbow. The mist shimmered and opened on a view of the camp. Iris must have known a little bit about our current situation because she put the rainbow right near the volleyball court, where a bunch of campers were playing. The server noticed the Iris message and jumped, dropping the ball and bringing the attention of the rest of the players to the message. 

“Hey Percy. Aren’t you and Annabeth supposed to be on a date right now?” The server, who I now recognized as Will Solace, asked. 

“We ran into a little problem,” I said, glancing at the wall where the assault on the cafe by the phoenix had begun again. “There’s a phoenix here.” Will’s eyes widened. 

“Woah. Okay. I’m guessing you need an archer?” Annabeth maneuvered herself so that she could be seen in the Iris message too. 

“Yeah. I’m so sorry, Will, you know we wouldn’t ask this if we didn’t need to. We’re sitting ducks here.” She said, emphasizing that it was important. We both knew how hard the recent war had hit the Apollo cabin, what with the death of their counselor. They had faced a whole army of monsters practically on their own, and then the personal battalion of Kronos. Will nodded, and his grave face showed us that he understood. 

“I get it, Annabeth, you don’t need to apologize. But you do know that even if you shoot it, it’s not going to die, right? Phoenixes are immortal.” Annabeth sighed.   
“Yeah, I know. That’s the other problem, I can’t remember how we learned to kill Phoenixes in monster class. Do you remember?” Another volleyball player piped up, one who I recognized as one of Will’s siblings, Austin. 

Austin said, “They’re like the Nemean lion. You have to use one of their own claws, or, when they go up in flames, use those flames to kill them when they reform.” Annabeth looked relieved, and I’m sure that my face relaxed as well. At least now we knew that we could kill them. 

“Thanks, Austin,” Annabeth said, offering him a smile. There was a frustrated bird shriek outside, and I doubled over the sink, hurling again. Annabeth swayed on her feet and we lost the connection for a second. All of the Apollo kids on the other side of the message looked concerned. 

“You guys don’t look so great. What’s going on.” Will asked, a worried frown spreading across his face. We explained how every time the phoenix opened its beak, we got sicker. No one looked very reassured with that.

“Kayla’s in the city right now. Tell me where you are, and I can get her over there for you as quickly as she can.” Will said. “Stall until then, and, uh, try not to die?” The last bit came out as more of a question. We told him where we were and said goodbye before cutting off the connection. The phoenix had made a sizeable hole in the wall, so we decided to go back outside. Being trapped in a building with the angry bird sounded like a great way to get killed. Racing back outside, we captured the phoenixes attention again. It didn’t look too pleased

The glare the bird fixed us with almost looked accusatory, like it was saying, Dude, you make me go to all this trouble to rip open the building, and then you just come out? What the heck, man? Somehow I didn’t feel too bad about making the phoenix do all that extra work. We went back to the same pattern, except with more purpose this time. Every time the phoenix dive-bombed us, I took a swipe at its claws. Annabeth did too, whenever it got close enough. Unfortunately, after a few nicks of its foot, the bird learned to stay up. I thought then that it might give up, but it just continued circling us. We were at a stalemate. It crossed my mind to wonder why the phoenix didn’t just sing and then feast on us when we died of some sickness or plague, but maybe the monster was too stupid. Or maybe it could get sick from diseased flesh. Or it just preferred a more healthy meal. 

We stood there for almost half an hour, neither side giving up before Kayla arrived. Kayla was a daughter of Apollo, god of medicine and archery, along with a bunch of other stuff, like music and prophecy. If I put the whole list of all of the little things that are included in each god’s domain, then the list would be longer than the Great Wall of China. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously. The dude was god of a lot of things. And since his kids had his godly blood running through their veins, they were good at healing and archery too. Will Solace was the camp’s best medic, and most of Apollo’s other kids were crack shots. Kayla could probably take down this bird with her eyes closed. 

When Kayla arrived, she looked startled to see the big purple flying thing. She probably wasn’t briefed on the whole the-phoenix-is-purple-not-gold thing either. Still, she made the correct guess that the bird was the monster and took aim before firing. It took a couple of arrows to bring the beast down, but she did it. The carcass of the phoenix fell through the sky before crashing onto the building that had the cafe in it. And then it caught on fire. I winced. We owed that cafe owner some serious money. The three of us rushed over to the burning building, and Kayla was about to light one of her arrows with the phoenix fire, but before she could it was gone. 

“I don’t understand, it just disappeared?” Kayla said, frustration in her voice. 

“Maybe phoenix fire burns faster than regular fire?” Annabeth guessed. 

“It didn’t spread. That’s good, right?” I asked. Annabeth didn’t look so sure. 

“It burned out so quickly.” She said, ignoring my question. “We didn’t get any of it, did we?” She turned to Kayla, a little bit of hope shimmering in her eye. Kayla shook her head. 

“Like you said, it burned out too quickly. Sorry.” Kayla shrugged her shoulders and Annabeth sighed but rallied herself. A determined look crept across her face, and I grinned, knowing that, no matter what, she wouldn’t give up. 

“We need to get one of its claws.” I looked at the mounds of ash where the building had once been. 

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” I gestured towards the moving mounds of dust and got into a fighting position. Annabeth mirrored me, and Kayla readied her bow. “Do we have a plan?” I asked. Annabeth smiled, though it looked a little bit more like she was baring her teeth. She’s mastered the ability of looking both completely terrifying and completely beautiful at the same time. 

“Just aim for its claws, okay? I have an idea.” With those words, we turned towards the reforming phoenix and prepared for battle. 

If you’ve never heard a child of Athena say, “I have an idea,” then you wouldn’t know that it is simultaneously the worst and the best thing you can hear in a dangerous situation. On the one hand, the plans made by the children of wisdom were pretty foolproof and usually got the job done, especially in battle. On the other hand, they usually involve having someone as a distraction, and that someone usually ended up fending for their life. That distraction was usually me. 

I have the utmost faith in my girlfriend. I know that she has my back, and she’s always been there to help me out of dangerous situations (usually so she can later yell at me about getting into dangerous situations, but that’s beside the point). She is the voice of reason in my life and I would never change anything about her. However, she’s also the person who gave me up on a silver platter to a bunch of Ares kids when I was twelve years old. Ares kids are scary, especially when they’re in a pack. That was before we were dating, or even friends, though, so now I’m more sure that she’s not going to put me in that sort of situation again. And yet the worry persists. 

At this point, I was fairly sure that the plan would have something to do with me being chased by an angry phoenix and (to my disappointment) I was not far off the mark. We stood together for a few minutes, Annabeth and I mostly watching Kayla shoot arrows at the phoenix, and occasionally fending it off when it flew too low. It seemed as if the phoenix had learned from its mistakes, and was keeping its eyes on Kayla, more focused on avoiding her arrows then on me or Annabeth. I get that the monster was immortal, but it was probably a pain dying again and again. We retreated slowly from the bird down the street, which had been abandoned by now. I hoped that there weren’t people in the buildings around us, but you could never be sure. There might be some curious mortal with their face pressed against the glass watching whatever they saw the phoenix as chase three kids down a New York street. I could hear the blaring of sirens in the distance, and could only hope that we could finish and get out of here before they arrived. I didn’t need to add another arson to my rap sheet. 

It was only when we’d reached the end of the street that Annabeth gave me any inkling of what she was thinking of. We were standing near apartments on either side when she said, “Okay, guys stop.” Kayla and I stopped in our tracks, glancing between Annabeth and the phoenix, which was still hovering over us like an angry blimp. Kayla fired an arrow at the bird, which just banked left and stayed where it was. 

“I need you guys to keep the phoenix where it is,” Annabeth said, the inklings of a crazy idea dancing in her eyes. 

“Um, how?” Kayla asked, looking at Annabeth like she was crazy. I’ll admit, I was questioning this plan as well. 

“Any way you can.” She said. She pecked me on the cheek. “I’ll be back.” Then she pulled on her baseball cap and disappeared. 

When I say disappeared, I don’t mean like she slipped away, or I blinked and she was somewhere else. She literally disappeared. Her baseball cap was a gift from her mom, and it came with the cool perk of invisibility. Kayla and I shared a look. I sighed and readied my sword. 

“Right. Keep a giant purple phoenix in place. Shouldn’t be too hard.” Kayla grumbled under her breath. I let out a short laugh. 

“Whatever this plan is, I hope it’s good,” Kayla said, steadying her bow. I subconsciously nodded. We looked at the phoenix and it stared right back at us. It angled itself towards us, noticing that we were no longer retreating. It reared up, and let out a reverberating caw. I dropped to one knee and held my free hand to my head as pain ricocheted through my skull. Kayla collapsed against a nearby car, throwing up over its shiny paint job. Oops. I heard a clang nearby and looked up to see the ladder of a fire escape descending all on its own. I prayed to all the gods that the phoenix wouldn’t notice that movement. Then it cawed again, and I changed my prayer to something along the lines of Aggghhhhhnoooo… Shakily, I stood up again and offered a hand to Kayla. We stood together facing the phoenix. 

“What if we fence it in?” Kayla said. “One of us goes to the other side, and we keep it distracted while Annabeth does her thing?” I nodded. It was as good a plan as any. 

“I’ll run across on three. Make sure it doesn’t make me bird chow.” Kayla nodded, firing off an arrow that the phoenix dodged. 

“One. Two. Three!”


	3. Annabeth Does Something Insane

Kayla and I were doing our best to keep the phoenix occupied. I kept on distracting it- an integral part of any plan of Annabeth’s- by yelling and dodging swipes of its claws. Kayla was firing arrows at it, purposefully avoiding it. Every once in a while she’d fire an arrow to either side of it if it started drifting off. We were keeping in the same spot as much as someone can control a fifteen-foot bird that they aren’t actually touching. I just hoped that Annabeth hurried up, although I wondered if I would really like this plan of hers if I knew the whole of it. There was another clang on a fire escape, much higher up this time, and the bird fixed one of its beady eyes on the building. To distract it, I yelled, “Hey, bird brain!”

The phoenix lost interest in Annabeth, which was a good thing. Unfortunately, the next target of its glare was me. It gave a loud caw, almost like it was growling at me. I keeled over and dropped to one knee. 

“Kayla, you feeling this?” I asked, my voice hoarse. The bird was still focused on me, but it seemed hesitant to approach again. It might have been scared of Riptide, or might have been choosing the fleshiest place to sink its talons into. I tried not to think of that. 

“No! I think it’s focused on you now. I think you made it angry- or, well, angrier.” 

“Wonderful.” I groaned. “Can you do the distracting next time?”

“I’ve got your back if it dives for you,” Kayla promised, sounding a little guilty that I was getting a face full of the purple plague. That, in turn, made me feel guilty. It wasn’t her fault that I felt like my intestines were trying to burrow out of my stomach. Still, it’s hard to turn off the snark, especially when you feel like you’re dying. 

The bird made to dive at me, so Kayla, seeing what it was about to do, fired an arrow close to its tail feathers. This one exploded, singing the bird, and going off with a bang. The bird whirled around in fury, this time at Kayla. It seemed more wary of her then it had been of me, which makes sense. I wasn’t the one with flying TNT. 

The phoenix opened its beak to caw again, and I prepared another insult when the bird’s eyes bugged out. It whipped around and around like it was chasing its tail. Do birds do that? As it whirled through the air, something appeared out of thin air and floated down. I caught the little bundle of fabric and noticed I was holding a New York Yankees baseball cap. Eyes wide, I looked up and tried to find Annabeth amidst the hurricane of feathers. I caught a flash of blonde hair- there! And again, except lower this time, as if she were moving. 

I knew that was crazy. If Annabeth was on that phoenix, she would be having a hard time just holding on for dear life, much less climb along the body of the phoenix. Even Annabeth wasn’t crazy enough to do that sort of thing. 

At Camp Half-Blood, the place I mentioned before, where we go to train to do this sort of crazy stuff, there’s a climbing wall. It’s not like other climbing walls; this is a special climbing wall. In other summer camps you might go to, or community centers, you could probably find a climbing wall. They’re usually just some plastic replica of the side of a mountain with nice little handholds all along it. This climbing wall is different. For one, it moves. The wall is an actual small mountain in the middle of the camp, with bodies of rock that move and crash together. If you move too slowly, lava starts pouring down it. Actual, real-life lava. At camp, we believe in learning by experience. 

Like I said before, Annabeth had been at camp ever since she was a little kid. She probably had the whole place memorized, even the impenetrable woods that border half of the camp. Annabeth had trained for a really long time at Camp Half-Blood, and she has her fair share of memories on the climbing wall. A little bit of advice, don’t challenge her to a race to the top. She can get up there faster than everyone except for a satyr, and they’re part goat, so that doesn’t really count. She rarely ever had close encounters with the lava, and she never got thrown off. She always teases me about that- I still haven’t gotten used to the climbing wall. I’ve made it to the top before, but I usually don’t escape unharmed. One time, I managed to fry the hairs off of my arm, and I smelled like burnt hair for the rest of the day. She’ll never let me forget that. 

So, yeah, Annabeth was good at climbing. But even she’s not good enough to be climbing over an angry phoenix in flight safely. If I tried to do that, I’d be thrown off in two seconds flat, if I even made it that long. So I figured that it was a trick of the light, and turned my attention back to keeping the phoenix in place, or to at least stand up. 

Using my sword as a cane would be a bad idea if it had a regular blade. The tip probably would have snapped off, and the blade would be damaged beyond repair. But Riptide was made of celestial bronze, a magical metal that all demigods made their weapons out of. It was the only thing that could be used to kill monsters. Mortal bullets or swords would barely leave a dent in a monster, all it would do would be to make it angrier. It worked the other way around too- celestial bronze would pass straight through a mortal because they weren’t ‘important’ enough for it to hurt. Us demigods got the bad end of the deal. Since we were half mortal and half god, we could be hurt by both mortal weapons and celestial bronze, though a wound from celestial bronze causes more damage, and it’s harder to heal. 

So when I placed the tip of Riptide on the ground, trying to stand up despite the incessant need to vomit, it didn’t break off or get damaged. The opposite, actually. Riptide sank straight into the ground like it was made of butter. Cursing, I staggered to my feet on my own, and pulled my sword out of the concrete, thinking in the back of my mind of the sword and the stone legend. The scar left where my sword had been started trickling water slowly. Riptide was originally the weapon of a hesperide, a friend of mine, and she was the granddaughter of two powerful primordial gods of the sea. Riptide itself was infused with that godly power and had the tendency of opening up springs when it was stabbed into the ground. 

When I finally got to my feet to check how it was going on Kayla’s side of things, I wanted to sit back down again. The daughter of Apollo had been keeping the bird busy for sure. The ground around her was littered with arrows that had fallen short of the bird. Kayla looked determined but drawn and weary. She was still pale from before, and I wondered if the cry of the phoenix had affected her after all. The bird in question opened up its beak again and let out a roar. Kayla collapsed to the ground. I was about to rush over to her when I saw her pick up her head. Seeing that she was still alive relieved me. I’d seen too many friends die already, and this stupid phoenix wasn’t going to make me lose another, With that thought in mind, I ran over to her side. 

“Hey, you okay?” I asked as soon as I got over there, searching through the pockets of the backpack that was lying beside her for any ambrosia or nectar. She made to sit up, but I placed a hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her back down. “I don’t think that’s a smart idea.” I was keeping watch on the phoenix out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t come up with a reason as to why it wasn’t attacking, but something seemed to have distracted it. 

“M’fine,” Kayla mumbled before her eyes rolled into the back of her head. 

“Styx!” I cursed, finally finding what I was looking for. A canteen of clear, butterscotch-colored liquid was tucked into the side pocket. It smelled like melting chocolate chips and cookie dough to me, which was how I knew that it was nectar. Nectar and ambrosia taste (and smell) like each individual person’s comfort food, so I couldn’t know how it would taste to Kayla. I dribbled a little into Kayla’s mouth, breathing a tense sigh of relief as some color returned to her cheeks. She didn’t wake up, but her breathing evened out and came out less raspy, so I figured that she was doing better. I couldn’t risk any more of the nectar. Nectar is the drink of the gods, so it can heal some wounds of demigods, plus some minor medical stuff, but too much of it makes our bodies literally burn up. I’d never seen it happen before, but the mental image was enough to make me never want to experiment. 

I turned my attention to the phoenix once I was sure that Kayla would be fine. I saw what had distracted it from attacking Kayla and I and ending us once and for all.   
Remember when I said before that Annabeth would never be insane enough to go mountain climbing on the colossal bird? I retract that statement. 

There was Annabeth, right in front of my eyes, arms and legs wrapped tightly around the left leg of the phoenix. Occasionally she would swipe at the talons on its foot, but she still wasn’t close enough. She sheathed her knife and caught my eye. She shouted something. 

“What?” I shouted back. The phoenix turned to me and swooped a little closer. I waved my sword at it to fend it off. I glanced at Kayla’s bow and arrows. 

“Don’t even think about it, Seaweed Brain!” I could definitely hear her now. “I don’t want to get skewered by my own boyfriend!” The phoenix swiped at me with its right leg, and I clipped it with Riptide again. Apparently, I’d re-caught its attention. It pulled back hissing. 

“Yeah, love you too!” I yelled back. “What did you say, before?” 

“Is-she-okay?” I could tell that each word took effort. She said them between clenched teeth as if she were afraid she’d bite off her own tongue if she opened her mouth. With the way the phoenix was jerking around, it was a substantial fear. 

“She seems fine,” I called back when the phoenix swooped near me again. Annabeth didn’t make any response, but I knew that she’d heard me. Her stormy grey eyes lightened just the tiniest bit. 

I’ll admit, at that moment, I was in awe of my girlfriend. She’d done some pretty extraordinary things before, not the least among them sword fighting the titan Kronos. But this was up there with the top ten most amazing, badass things that Annabeth had ever done. Bleeding and bruised, she was still somehow completely sure of herself. I saw the determination sparkling in her eyes, and I couldn’t help but stop and gawk. Blame it on my ADHD. I still had the presence of mind to continue avoiding the phoenix’s attacks, though. 

“I have a plan,” Annabeth called out when I was close enough again to see her. The phoenix must have been incredibly stupid not to yet know that it had picked up a hitchhiker, but it had acclimated and was starting to use both claws to make grabs at me. I tried to keep my sword away from Annabeth. 

“I noticed!” I responded, rolling to avoid the Annabeth-claw. She looked frustrated, but the phoenix pulled back, so I couldn’t hear anything she might have said. When the bird descended again, she said, “I need your sword!”

“What?” I was dumbfounded. Annabeth knew how to use a sword, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if Annabeth knew how to use a gun. But Annabeth had always preferred her dagger. I’d never seen her go into any major battle with any other weapon. So her asking for a sword, specifically my sword, was strange. When the phoenix brought us back together, she gave me an answer. 

“I need the length.” She rushed out, as I avoided the talons. “My dagger can’t reach.” I nodded, though I wasn’t sure if she could see me. 

“How am I supposed to get it to you?” The phoenix flew away again, but I could read one word on Annabeth’s lips. THROW, she’d mouthed to me. 

“Throw it? Are you crazy?” I asked when she could hear me. “I’d kill you!” I saw her roll her eyes. 

“Not when it’s a sword! Throw the pen to me, you dweeb!” Dweeb. That’s new. I’d have to add it to the list of the ways my girlfriend insults me each day. Young love, and all that…

Searching my pockets for the Riptide’s cap, I quickly pulled it out and touched it to the point of the sword. Shrinking into a ballpoint pen, I then hurled the sword to my girlfriend. I wasn’t the best with aim, but I gave it my best pitcher's throw. The god of baseball must have been looking out for me then, because, by some miracle, she caught it. Ripping off the cap of the pen and tossing it aside, she adjusted her grip on the phoenix so she was holding on one handed. It took three slices of the sword to fully remove the talon of the phoenix, and once she did, she threw Riptide away from her. I wondered why until I saw her dive from the (now wounded and flailing angrily) phoenix. She’d timed it perfectly, as usual, catching the phoenix by surprise in the time it was closest to the ground. She’d have made it, too, if the phoenix hadn’t let out a bellow of pain. The sound reverberated through the buildings around us, and I’m pretty sure that the entire Upper East Side rolled out of bed to throw up at that moment. Annabeth lost her perfect form for a dive roll and recover as they taught at camp, and it looked as though she was going to crash straight down onto the cold asphalt. 

With terror, I looked around for anything that might help stop her fall. Through my fuzzy brain, I managed to register the mini spring that I created earlier. Fighting off unconsciousness, I reached out to my son-of-the-sea-god powers and tugged. It took all of my strength to will the water up, but once I had enough, I redirected the geyser to catch Annabeth and bring her gently to the ground. At least, more gently than a straight fall. All my power spent, I collapsed to the ground, my vision going blurry. My eyelids closed, and I vaguely registered the starburst of light from the burning phoenix fall to the ground, closer then I would have preferred if I’d been in the right state of mind then.


	4. We Play Slice and Dice

“Hey. Don’t fall asleep, Seaweed Brain.” I felt someone shaking my shoulders and groggily opened my eyes. 

“What…” I groaned, slowly sitting up.

“Hey, take it easy.” Annabeth was crouched in front of me, soaking wet, but unharmed. “Not too easy, though. We’ve still got a monster to kill.” I looked behind her to see Kayla, standing up now, looking a lot better than she had before. She was firing arrows into the air at the newly reformed phoenix. I sighed at the already too familiar sight of the giant violet bruise flying around in the sky. 

“How many times are we going to have to kill this thing?” I complained, shakily standing up with Annabeth’s help. They must have given me some ambrosia or nectar because I was feeling much better than any person who just passed out has the right to. I glanced over at Kayla. “You okay?” I asked. She spared a glance in my direction, and I could see the relief on her face that I was up and standing. 

“Yeah. You?” She turned her attention back to the phoenix just in time to keep it from raking its claws over her head. It banked with a sharp adjustment of its wings and struggled in the air for a moment to avoid the arrow. It was looking tired of this routine by now, and I could empathize. 

“I feel like I just threw up and passed out,” I said, rather redundantly. Annabeth rolled her eyes at me, but I could tell that she was restraining a laugh. 

“Yeah, well hopefully we can skewer this bird before it opens its beak again,” Kayla said, firing off another arrow. This one sliced through the phoenix’s wing, shearing off some feathers, but not causing any major damage. The phoenix let out an angry caw, and we all staggered back a step. “Or not.” Purple feathers floated to the ground in a little shower. 

“So how do we get the phoenix to the ground?” I asked, directing my question to Annabeth. “Stop fighting?” She looked like she’d considered this option. 

“No, it would probably end up killing us before we got the chance to stab it. Too risky. I was thinking…” Her tone of voice told me that this wasn’t going to be an idea that I would like. I gave her a look. 

“What?” I asked, a flat tone conveying my suspicion. She chewed on her lip. 

“Well, if one of us caused a distraction-” I sighed, seeing where this was going. 

“Why me?” I asked, mumbling. I addressed the question more towards the sky, a general question to the gods as to why it was always me. Unfortunately, Annabeth caught my words. She punched me in the shoulder. “Ow.” It hadn’t really hurt. Not much did after I’d bathed in the River Styx, but it was more of an involuntary response. 

“Because you’re the most annoying.” I rubbed my shoulder and looked at her expression. She was only half kidding. 

“Thanks.” She sighed, brushing aside some of her hair that had gotten loose from her ponytail. 

“It doesn’t have to be you. It just needs to be one of us. Kayla, can you hear me?” She called the last part over her shoulder to the archer behind us. Kayla shouted back, “Loud and clear.” Annabeth adjusted her body so that she was facing the phoenix and so that she could see both Kayla and me without turning too much. 

“The plan is that one of us, and by us I mean Percy or me, breaks off from the others and leads the phoenix down the street. The other follows behind, out of eyeshot of the phoenix. When the phoenix dives for the first person, the other one stabs it with the claw.” She gestured beside her to the long, wicked sharp claw resting next to Kayla’s backpack. “Kayla, you would stay back here to shoot the phoenix if anything goes wrong. If the phoenix gets too close, or we lose the claw for some reason or another, you shoot down the bird before it hurts anyone. Buy us some time to regroup.” Kayla nodded, keeping her eyes on the phoenix. I noticed with anxiety that she seemed to be running out of arrows. 

“Do you have enough arrows?” I asked. Kayla shook her head. 

“If you could pick some of them off the ground? The ones that aren’t too broken?” Annabeth and I took turns covering each other and running underneath the phoenix to collect the fallen arrows. When we had recovered all of the ones that were still okay to use and gave them to Kayla, she gave us the green light on her half of the plan. Annabeth and I decided to rock-paper-scissors for who would have to be the distraction this time. I won, two out of three (and, no, Annabeth did not let me get away with making a finger gun to beat rock, paper, and scissors. We had to redo that round.). Annabeth set her face, took a deep breath, and nodded. She pulled her knife out of her sheath and got ready to go. Before she started running at the phoenix, she gave me a quick kiss for luck. She probably shouldn’t have done. It stunned me for a few seconds before I remembered I was supposed to be running after her. 

She’d almost reached the end of the street when the phoenix dived for her. I sped up as it got closer. It was descending at an alarming rate. First, it was forty feet away from her. Then twenty. Then fifteen. Then ten. It was almost close enough to touch her when I jumped at it. I raced as fast as I could before launching myself at the nearest wing. I was almost ready to stab it right where the wing met the body when it caught me with an upsweep in its flight. Annabeth dived to the side as the phoenix skidded to the ground, trying to turn to see what had hit it. I somersaulted over the other side of the bird, head over heels, like the ball in a pinball machine being bounced around by the levers. I crashed into the wall on the other side of the street. 

I don’t know what happened right after that moment, because my vision went black for a second. I was pretty sure that I got a concussion from being slammed into the wall. I guess that can happen even if you have skin and bones of iron. Life lesson learned; if you hit something on the head hard enough, it eventually stops working. I regained my vision too slowly, the edges tinted in red. I opened my eyes to see the phoenix descending on me, talons extended. It let out a caw of anger and my vision went white, like it had been bleached out. The last thing I saw before I passed out (again- I was getting tired of this) was the sharp end of a talon slice through the center of the bird and it exploded and showered me with yellow dust, Annabeth standing behind it, fire in her eyes. 

I don’t know how long I was unconscious. I swam in and out of it, dipping through the darkness at some times before almost surfacing and grabbing snatches of images and conversation. I came up to the surface several times. The first time I heard a whispered conversation, and sirens in the background. Or maybe it was just the ringing in my ears. 

“-idiot. Is he going to be okay?”

“As far as I can tell. As long as we get him back to camp, he should be fine.”

“If this moron dies on me today I’m going to kill him.” 

I tried to open my eyes at that, wanting to ask what poor guy was going to die twice, but before I could I was pulled under again. The second time I could comprehend anything wasn’t any less confusing. I managed to open my eyes that time, albeit for only a very short period. I blinked sleepily. I couldn’t really understand what was going on around me. My brain felt fuzzy, and my surroundings didn’t make sense. I was on the metro, leaning on a girl with blonde hair- Annabeth, my sleepy brain told me- and across from a girl who had an unstrung bow and quiver of arrows across her back- again, my brain supplied me with a name to the face, Kayla. 

“Wha..?” My words came out thick and slurred. Kayla jolted up, leaning forward. Annabeth’s head jerked towards me. “Are we… on the metro..?” I forced out. Kayla was leaning forward, inspecting my eyes. 

“Can you follow my finger?” She asked, waving her index finger in front of my face. I tried to focus on it, but it blurred and buzzed in front of my face. Eventually, she gave up with a frown. Addressing her next words to Annabeth, she said, “I’m pretty sure he has a concussion.” This caught the attention of a guy standing near us. He wiggled around in the crowded metro until he could see the three of us. When he saw the state I was in, he let out a low whistle. 

“Is he okay?” The stranger asked. I was already losing my grip on reality, but I could faintly see the panicked glance the two girls shared, and Annabeth’s eventual response.

“Yeah, he’s just drunk.” With that comforting lie, I let myself be enveloped by the darkness, despite Kayla’s panicked whispers to not fall asleep. 

The next time I woke up, it was for good. I blearily opened my eyes to light shining through the window. It took me a few moments to get my bearings, we were walking up half-blood hill. I’d woken up due to being manhandled out of a taxi. The driver cast a look over my way. She looked sympathetic. I halfheartedly wondered if they’d told her as well that I was drunk. 

“Hey, kid, drink lots of water. You’ll feel better tomorrow.” She said when she caught my gaze. I made to nod, but a piercing pain through my brain caused me to bring the nod to an abrupt halt. I tried to steady myself on my feet, giving her a little thumbs up. Seeing that I was awake, Annabeth shifted me over so that my arm was draped over her shoulders. Kayla and she helped me climb the hill. Each step made me feel like passing out, but somehow we made it to the top. 

The way down the hill was easier, but still gave me the unsettling feeling of leaving my stomach behind. The whole thing was very reminiscent of my very first trip to the camp. I’d passed out that time too, and I wasn’t really looking forward towards that sort of end for this time. Thankfully I managed to stay awake until we got to the bottom of the hill. We got a few strange looks from the other campers as we passed, and I knew that I would be the subject of rumors through camp. It wasn’t the first time that that sort of thing had happened, but it didn’t make it any better for me to go through. We passed the volleyball court, which had been abandoned since we last saw it. Annabeth searched around the camp, probably for a medic. She suddenly waved the arm that wasn’t supporting me around in the air, hailing Will Solace, who she had spotted loitering near the pavilion where we eat our meals. She accidentally jolted me, and I let out a low groan, which caught the attention of most of the campers near us pretty quickly. Will hurried over, trying to mask the concern on his face behind a professional standpoint.

“What happened?” He asked once he was within earshot, walking quickly beside Annabeth and I as we hurried to the infirmary. 

“The phoenix hit him with its wing, he slammed into a building-” Annabeth started, but Will cut her off. 

“What about the blessing of the River Styx?” Annabeth shot me a worried glance. 

“I think without it he would be in a lot worse shape. I guess he can still get internal damage even if his skin can’t be cut through and his bones can’t break? Kayla thinks he has a concussion.” Will turned to his sister. She nodded in agreement with what Annabeth had said. 

“Yeah, and a pretty serious one too. Plus, the phoenix screamed right in his face before he passed out.” 

“Do you think he’s contagious?” Will asked, a hesitant look on his face. Annabeth shifted uncomfortably beside me. 

“The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.” She admitted. She shot me a nervous glance. “Probably not? I guess you’d have to ask Chiron, see if he knows anything about phoenixes.” 

“I’ll go.” Kayla volunteered but was stopped short by a steely look from Will. 

“Absolutely not. The three of you are headed straight to the infirmary and getting at least a day’s rest. Percy wasn’t the only one affected by the phoenix.” He took in all of our gaunt faces and their bruised and scratched bodies. “At least a day.” He repeated, stressing the ‘at least.’ Annabeth didn’t look too pleased with that but acquiesced without complaint. Neither of us liked spending a lot of time in bed without doing anything. No demigod did, especially since most of us were ADHD. Will bustled us into the medic ward, settling each of us into a cot next to each other. Nearby I saw a camper being treated for what looked like a second nose. Probably messed with some of the new campers from the Hecate cabin. A lot of injuries of that sort had been happening, between older campers and new ones. 

We’d had an influx of new campers lately, what with the reconstruction of camp. After the end of the Titan war, I had made the gods promise to claim their children, and we had started construction on new cabins. Before the Titan war, we’d only had twelve cabins, one for each of the gods on the Olympian Council, but since then we’d been building a new array of cabins for a lot of the minor gods. Annabeth was actually leading the project. She was an architectural wiz, they even hired her to reconstruct the palaces for the gods on Olympus after the damage caused by the war. Today was her day off- we were supposed to be having a relaxing date right now. 

Since there was new space for everyone tons of new campers were making their way to Camp Half-Blood. A lot of the older campers had grown up together and were taking time to get used to all of the new personalities thrown into the mix. The Apollo kids had to deal with a bunch of new maimings and other maladies. Otherwise, everyone was getting on fine. We were all family, after all. (Kind of- this long, convoluted, extended family, with basically no DNA on the gods’ side. That’s why it wasn’t weird for me to be dating Annabeth.)

Will broke me off from my observations by handing me a generous square of ambrosia to eat. I ate it in small chunks, tasting buttered popcorn and warm cookies, two tastes that shouldn’t have gone well together, but somehow did. Then Will muttered a blessing over me, and I felt the nausea in the pit of my stomach disappear some. Will finished and took a step back, sweating slightly and pale. 

“You should get some sleep.” He said. I nodded and told him not to try to heal everyone on his own. He waved me off, and before I could protest I was being enveloped in warm sleep. I succumbed to the darkness, this time it enveloping me like a warm snuggie rather than drowning me.


	5. I Pick Up a Date

I was watching Annabeth with careful eyes. She wasn’t looking at me- rather she was looking around, evaluating and calculating. I crossed my fingers and held my breath. If Annabeth decided that even one thing was off about this, I was dead for sure. She finally looked back at me, chewing her lip. I prepared for the fatal blow when she exhaled. I couldn’t detect if it was sadness, disappointment, or contentment. She smiled, and I relaxed. I immediately offered her a shaky smile back. 

“This is really nice, Percy.” She said, letting her smile overcome her whole face. We were sitting in a cafe with a window overlooking the Hudson. Admittedly, after actually swimming in the polluted waters and meeting the jerk god of those waters, the view was less nice. But Annabeth seemed pleased. 

Earlier that day we’d gone to the Met, like we had planned earlier, before the infamous phoenix attack. The attack had happened three days before, and earlier this morning Will had finally cleared us to leave the infirmary. It turns out that we’d had some pretty serious illnesses from the phoenix, some of them ancient and extinct. I couldn’t recall all of the names of them. I know that Annabeth had a slight case of the whooping cough. Thankfully, the illnesses didn’t seem to be contagious. Maybe you had to be present when the phoenix sang to get the diseases, or maybe the phoenix wasn’t at full strength. That would explain why it was so anxious to eat us and just wouldn’t give up. 

The first thing I’d done after we were let out was ask Annabeth on another date. She’d told me that, with our track record, maybe a date wasn’t such a good idea. I’d thought she was serious until she laughed in my face and called me a Seaweed brain before accepting. 

I wasn’t much for museums, but just seeing Annabeth’s face while we walked through the museum was worth it. We got those audio tours, because I didn’t trust tour guides after the last few tours I’d been on being led by either monsters or gods, and neither of us could make heads or tails of the tour books because of our dyslexia. I hadn’t paid much attention to my tour, often switching it off in favor of watching Annabeth smile and look around at the ancient history. Every time she caught me looking at her, she’d give me a small smile and a punch on the shoulder. It probably hurt her more than it hurt me, but it was the thought that counts. I tried to focus on learning. 

After we left the museum, Annabeth wouldn’t stop talking about it- about some of the expositions, and even the structure of the museum itself. We’d gone on a walk through the city, keeping an eye out for monsters. I’ll admit that I hadn’t let go of Riptide in my pocket until we reached the place we were going to eat lunch. 

Neither Annabeth nor I would fit very well in a fancy place, and it wasn’t a particularly special occasion, so we went to a casual pizza place. It had some great food, and when Annabeth smiled at me, I knew that it had passed her test. She set down her slice of pizza and turned to face me completely. Her grey eyes were sparkling with happiness.

Annabeth had dressed up for this occasion, again. Her shirt from last time had been mostly ruined by dirt and blood, so this time she’d opted for her basic Camp Half-Blood shirt. I guess she wasn’t wearing anything different from what she would usually wear every day at camp, but I’d never seen anyone more beautiful. (Which is saying something, because I’d met Aphrodite, the goddess of love.) She had her hair up in a bun and was wearing her owl earrings again. I was beginning to suspect that they were the only jewelry that she owned. Her bead necklace lay against her neck, her dad’s college ring sparkling in the light filtering through the window next to us. She reached across the table and took my hand. My heart raced, and I hoped that my hands weren’t sweating. Even after dating her for months, she still had the ability to knock me out, metaphorically and literally. 

She took in a deep breath and let out another sigh, this one I could tell was contentment. She glanced out the window before fixing her gaze back on me. 

“This is nice.” She said again. “You did a good job, Seaweed brain.” I grinned at her, a big dopey grin.

“A high compliment.” She laughed and squeezed my hand. Her eyes closed when she laughed, and crinkled up at the edges. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she let out an amused chuckle. Her hair sparkled in the sunlight, and I lost my breath again. It was amazing that after three days of coughing up mucus and generally being sick, someone could look that gorgeous. She sighed again, though this time it was sadder. 

“I wish it could always be like this.” She said, avoiding eye contact, glancing out onto the street. 

“What do you mean?” She rolled eyes in my direction, a small smile growing on her face. She looked just like she did every time I said something stupid. She gestured vaguely around with her free hand. 

“You know. This.” She sighed when she saw that I still wasn’t getting it. “Being normal. Going on dates. Hades, even just going to the museum without being attacked by a monster. I know it’s not your fault.” She added on quickly at the end when she saw the defensive look on my face. “Just imagine it, though. No gods, no titans, no war. Just being people.” I looked around, and couldn’t help but agree with her. 

Both of us had hard lives. We still had hard lives. We would probably always had hard lives. We were always going to be surprised that we reached our next birthday. We were always going to worry about which of our friends was in danger or dead. The average life expectancy of a demigod was… well it wasn’t long. Sooner or later, a monster always found you. It’s no wonder that there aren’t any adult demigods at camp. I could barely imagine what it would like to be normal, but I figured it would be nice. Safe, at least. Except…

“I would never have met you.” I half-teased, although it was true. If she wasn’t a daughter of a goddess, she’d probably never have run away from her dad. She’d have stayed in Virginia, and then probably moved with him to San Francisco. We wouldn’t even know each other. The real Annabeth, the amazing daughter of Athena that I was having lunch with, rolled her eyes at me, the smile on her face growing. She only responded with, “cheesy,” though she didn’t deny that it was true. We both sat there, quiet for a little while, before she spoke up again. 

“We’d have found a way.” She finally said, and it took me a minute to process what she was saying. I smirked at her. 

“Who’s being cheesy now?” I jabbed. She shook her head, but continued talking. 

“I mean it. You and me, together. We’re the dream team.” I smiled and squeezed her hand. She grinned at me before adding on. “If only so I can stop you when you make stupid decisions.” My mouth dropped open in astonishment as she pulled her hand out of mine, using both to cover her laughter. Eventually she gave up, giving in to the stream of chuckles erupting from her throat. I couldn’t help but laugh as well. When we calmed down finally she looked in my eyes seriously. 

“Together.” Grinning back, I went to lighten the mood. 

“Forever.” I promised, trying to make it sound as much like a cheesy romance film as possible. She laughed again, and squeezed my hand. I squeezed hers back, not willing to let go anytime soon. In that moment, sitting there in the cafe looking out on the sparkling waters of the river. The shimmering surface of the water hid all of the polluted waters below. That moment was our calm before the storm. I found myself sitting there, thinking, as cliche as it sounds, that, if I could, I would never let go of Annabeth’s hand. I didn’t know then that it would be one of the last times I saw her for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this two years ago, and it's been sitting on my computer completed. I figured I might as well post it. I should probably inform you that I've only read the first book in the Trials of Apollo, so Kayla is based entirely off of that and her brief cameo in The Last Olympian. I'll admit that this has not undergone serious editing since I finished it two years ago, so constructive criticism is appreciated and encouraged! Also, this went straight from a word doc to the ao3 format, so any formatting advice or critiques are welcomed!


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